the art of suffocation
by bubblegum days
Summary: "He needs me." / trying to quit a bad habit, trina/beck.


**A/N**: Funny story. When I first came into the fandom and Victorious was new and I had no idea how relationships between these characters worked, I shipped Trina with two people: Cat and Beck. Yeah. Recently, I have been thinking about writing Trina/Beck, because a) I really don't write anything besides Trina/Robbie, and b) I have always associated Jade and Trina on the sole fact that both of their characters are selfish. Throw in writer's block and a prompt generator, and that's how this fic was born. I went about 150 words over the limit of my prompt, though. Whatever.

* * *

><p><em>500-1000 words. character study. trying to quit a bad habit. <em>

_._

She doesn't know why but there's these two pale white hands wrapped around her neck suddenly and all she can see is stars on the ceiling of his R.V. like the night sky but it's like eleven in the morning, and the person that's choking her is so mad and there's nails digging into her skin and she can't breathe and oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck-

"That's what you get," _she_ snarls, and _she_ releases and walks away while she, the person who was just strangled, coughs and sputters. The intent was not to kill. The intent was to punish. He quickly explains that that is how _she_ rolls, then yells at her and kicks _her_ out, and even though she was the one "warned," she has never felt more guilty in her whole entire life.

When he comes back she whispers to him, "I'm so sorry, I'm so fucking sorry, oh my God, aren't you going to arrest _her_ or something? My dad could do that-he's a cop-she's bat shit _insane_. I'm going to bruise." And all these words tumble out even though they, like, never talk to each other, and the other inability of the R.V. are just kind of quiet, including her younger sister and her best friend.

He _shhs _her and kisses the necklace of red hand-marks on her neck. Then, he orders everybody to go home, and when everybody is gone they sit outside on his steps and she smokes for the first time in her life. She coughs and he laughs.

A boy and a girl fall in love.

.

"It's impossible to suffocate yourself," he says to her, one day, while they are relaxing in her huge bed with the crumpled white bed sheets, she's laying on her back and he's on his side, his arm draped across her midsection. "You pass out and when you do, your muscles sort of relax, so your hands will fall away from your neck. Interesting, huh?"

"If you say so," she says, turning her head to look at him better. They are so close. Brown eyes meet brown eyes, and he raises his arm from her belly to stroke her hair away from her face. He leans in and kisses her slightly. She kisses back.

.

"I don't love him," she says to her best friend, who's sitting on the ledge of one of those stone-wall-garden-fence deals outside of his house. "I don't. He doesn't love me, either. We don't talk to each other at all."

"Why are you with him, then?" The best friend asks. He unwraps an ice cream sandwich and hands it to her, because she knows he hates to see her smoke and has to find another way to occupy her mouth, then sticks a lollipop in his own. He pushes it to his cheek and just lets the flavor seep out while his hand rests in his lap.

"He needs me," she responds. She takes a bite of her ice cream sandwich. "I mean, everybody needs me, I can solve everything. But he really needs me. I don't know why. I think it's because I'm a lot like . . . _her_."

"You're nothing like _her_," he says softly, staring down at his hands.

.

She sits on the curb beside him and he offers her a cigarette, which she gladly accepts. He lights it for her. His hands shake slightly.

They're outside of his parent's house and his R.V., and the smoking gives them something to do with his mouth so they don't have to talk to each other. She gives him a sort of loose smile with the cigarette between her teeth and her hands aloof. He repeats the position. But she knows-she knows that his real smiles are with his mouth closed, lips slightly upturned, nothing but an amused smirk. She also knows that she will never be able to draw that smile from him.

They don't talk, even though he texted her to meet him as soon as possible. She leaves once she finishes her cigarette and drops it to the street, then takes off walking. He rubs the cigarette into the pavement with the heel of his boot.

.

"It's so fucked up," she groans to her sister. "I don't even like him. He's hot, yeah, but he's so . . ."

"He's an acquired taste," her sister says. "You two just don't fit. Not like they did. Everybody thinks you're the reason why, by the way." And then she leaves. Just walks out the front door.

.

They move in together, or rather, she moves into his R.V. She's out of high school and he's almost, it's perfectly socially acceptable. She just grabs all of her stuff from home and moves it in their and tells her parents that she's gone. She ignores them when they ask how she's going to provide for herself, because she doesn't have a job.

It's a benefit of a year older than her boyfriend, she guesses.

He goes to school sometimes, and during those days, she will stay in his-their-bed, covers wrapped around her, phone by her side. Sometimes she will call somebody and talk to them and when her best friend bothers to talk-he didn't approve, he will never approve-she tells him she hates her life.

"He said it's impossible for me to suffocate myself," she says, grimly, "but if I could, I would."

"Don't say that," he says, on the other line. "Just break up with him."

"He needs me."

"It's been several months, now," he whispers into the phone. "He doesn't need you anymore. I think you need him."

.

Maybe he's right. Maybe she does need him. She doesn't know why, though, and when he comes back to school, he just slides right in bed with her and his kisses are so fierce, so strong, she can't breathe-

And then he pulls apart and tells her, "I need you to leave. I can't be with you like this. I'm sorry. I was selfish. I needed you. She broke my heart and I just didn't know how to be alone. But now I do. And that's what I need. I need you to leave, please."

.

On the curb outside of his living quarters, she calls her best friend. "You were right," she sighs, into the phone. "Please pick me up and take me home."

And he tells him, "See? You don't listen to me enough."

She smiles, just a little. "I guess."

"Where's home?" he asks her.

"Where it's always been. You know. This was so stupid, Robbie."

"I know. I'll see you in a bit." She can practically hear the corners of his lip go up like crinkled paper. His real smile is with teeth, and he is the inverse of everything she thought she needed, and while she waits for him she throws all of her cigarettes onto the road for no apparent reason at all.


End file.
